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500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

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Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#31

Post by wmf »

fab13n wrote: post #27

"Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App?" Because consumers are not trained to pay for web sites, whereas they're trained to pay AppStore-delivered apps, that's why. 80% of iPhone/iPad applications, both accepted and rejected ones, would work great in HTML5; the figure is of course much higher for applications that might have been written in flash. But discussions about Apple's languages, SDK or even hardware…

As explained elsewhere in this very thread, you can create App Store apps in HTML; there are already a ton of them in the store. Therefore the HTML vs. ObjC issue is orthogonal to the paid app vs. free Web site issue.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#33

Post by GR8K »

The company that did the Time Magazine app for iPad: http://www.woodwing.com/en

inDesign extension/tool that will do iPad/AIR/HTML5 packaging:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1IZ-16FVs4

I think they also did the Sports Illustrated HTML5 magazine with thewondefactory.com

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#34

Post by statictype »

dreyfiz wrote: post #6
ars wrote: post #2

Did I miss something? Did adobe buy wired? He keeps talking about adobe here, but I don't see the connection.

The iPad edition of the magazine was originally made in a beta version of Flash CS5, relying on its ability to output iPhone OS apps. When Apple banned third-party runtimes, Adobe built Wired this horrifying hack. I think it's an InDesign plugin. The idea is that Wired's designers won't have to learn anything about the iPhone OS to create the app, but this is a pretty atrocious implementation.

Why do you say the implementation is atrocious?

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#35

Post by jawngee »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

I'm the author of the article.

Ain't nobody talking about downloading the thing as you read it.

All of the content for an HTML 5 version could be stored offline, you'd be gaining massive size savings - which on limited mobile devices (not just the iPad) would be huge gains.

I'm actually considering writing an open source objective-c framework for specifically this purpose, I would hate for Adobe to get a foothold in this and kill the promise.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#37

Post by jawngee »

betageek wrote: post #18

The fundamental argument is flawed - I find it extremely hard to believe that anyone could create the same seamless experience as the iPad Wired app in HTML5. I certainly haven't seen any demo's that would imply it's possible, saying "you could do that in HTML 5" if very easy to say, a lot harder to do. Maybe if the authors of these kinds of posts provided us with a demos I'd start taking these missives seriously.

I'm the author of the article.

Have you used it?

It really is pretty much a slideshow. Even if you write it using webkit, you can ape whatever wonderful interactions you seem to be having (that I must have completely missed) using multiple UIWebView's and some good ol CoreAnimation.

You can also extend UIWebView with straight up Objective-C, further adding in the ability to do pretty much whatever you want.

There are a shit ton of HTML 5 demo's on the web. Try google.

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#38

Post by radley »

radley wrote: post #4
ars wrote: post #2

Did I miss something? Did adobe buy wired? He keeps talking about adobe here, but I don't see the connection.

Adobe built the app for Wired. First it was Flash/AIR based, but then they have to make it iPOS compliant...

Of course I'm playing with the double meaning. It's a semantic irony to insist iPad and iPod apps are built in "iPhone OS" and never "iPOS".

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#39

Post by cma »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12

A better article would be "Why Wired Didn't use HTML5 for their iPad App". Since that probably wouldn't have the same link-bait worthy title, I'll write one here. Why didn't Wired use HTML5? 1) a) it was built by Adobe who build it on Flash to begin with, b) the tools just aren't there yet. c) because of #2. 2) Why is the app 500MB? Because all the rich content (images, movies, audio) are bundled into the app so you…

"I suppose you could have created a native app with everything bundled locally and a UIWebView for rendering the HTML5 content, but really what do you gain from that?"

An easy jumping off point for cross compatibility with Android, Windows, and OS X?

Re: 500MB download? Why didn't Wired Magazine use HTML5 for their iPad app?

#40

Post by raganwald »

andreyf wrote: post #3

Because whatever software they use to layout the magazine can't export to HTML5. Since they're optimizing for time-to-market, they don't have time to retrain their designers to use different software, rewrite/extend it, or wait for the creators of that software to add export-to-HTML5 functionality, and so this was the most reasonable move. Give it some time, and they'll either move everything to HTML5 or a similar fo…

> Since they're optimizing for time-to-market

How have they optimized for time to market given that they have a large team of HTML-savvy web designers in house?

And what is the point of optimizing for time if you fail to deliver something that delights your market?

I haven't tried this thing, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but if every page is an image, how does one copy text? If there is text in a column, Double tapping ought to maximize the text to fit the column. I don't imagine that works either.

So they're making something that looks like a web page but offers less functionality. That's a very poor trade-off. Those 90s CD-ROMs made money for people back when browsers couldn't deliver that experience. They offered more functionality than the web.

Today, stuff like this offers less functionality. That's a big sacrifice to make.

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